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The gerrymandering report bookends other analyses, by the Brennan Center and others, documenting how state-level Republicans have introduced some 165 proposals in 33 states this year that would make voting more difficult. These include imposing new voter-identification laws, rolling back access to mail balloting and early-voting periods, and adding new hurdles to the voter-registration process. H.R. 1 and a new VRA, if they become law and survive legal challenges, would preempt almost all of those moves as well.

Read: The decision that will define Democrats for a decade

Given the likelihood that, absent federal intervention, red states will enact severe gerrymanders and new obstacles to voting, the decision about whether to end the Senate filibuster to pass these two bills could shape the future of American politics more than anything else Democrats do in the next two years. If the filibuster remains in place, [H.R. 1] dies in the Senate, Dan Pfeiffer, the former White House communications director for Barack Obama, wrote this week. If that happens, the Republicanswho represent a shrinking minority of Americanswill likely return to power and control politics for the next decade or more.

When Senate Democrats like Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and [Dianne] Feinstein oppose getting rid of the filibuster, Pfeiffer added, they are deciding to make it more likely that their time in the majority is ever so brief.

Li told me that, in some respects, partisans may have less opportunity now for aggressive redistricting than they had after the 2010 census, though that may not be true in key states. States draw new lines for congressional districts after each decennial census, and that process is shaped by a complex convergence of legal and political factors.

Republicans leverage over the process seems slightly reduced since the 2010 redistricting. Parties have the greatest freedom to manipulate the lines in states where they control redistricting without input from the other sidealmost always because they hold both chambers of the state legislature and the governorship. (Some states deny the governor any role.) After the 2010 census, Republicans enjoyed this level of control over the drawing of 213 congressional districts. They used their authority to impose extremely one-sided gerrymanders in states including Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and Texas.

This time, Republicans hold complete control in states that will draw up to 188 districts. (Democrats, by contrast, completely control the maps in states with up to 74 seats.) The number of seats Republicans will oversee has diminished because they lost unified control of government in some statesincluding Wisconsin and Pennsylvaniaand because Michigan transferred control of redistricting from the state legislature to an independent commission. Additionally, in GOP-controlled Ohio, voters approved an initiative that created redistricting standards that could impede, though not eliminate, gerrymandering.

Excerpt from:
The GOP Cheat Code to Winning Back the House - The Atlantic